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Short answer: Earth’s surface will become uninhabitable billions of years before the Sun reaches its final white-dwarf state. Whether the planet itself is physically swallowed is still unsettled. A 2008 model predicted engulfment, while a 2026 Astronomy & Astrophysics study using updated tidal physics and mass-loss observations from the near-solar-mass star L2 Pup finds that Earth likely survives the Sun’s red-giant and asymptotic-giant phases. That newer result remains conditional because the Sun’s late-stage mass-loss rate is not known precisely.
What “survive” means in this question
There are two different outcomes often mixed together. Habitability concerns whether Earth can retain oceans, an atmosphere and conditions suitable for life. Physical survival means that the planet remains a separate body rather than being destroyed inside the Sun’s expanded outer layers. Those outcomes do not occur at the same time.
Earth’s surface habitability ends first. As the Sun brightens and later expands, incoming radiation becomes extreme. NASA states that Earth will not be habitable and that an advanced civilization’s only chance would be migration to another planetary home. A planet could therefore survive in orbit while its surface, atmosphere and oceans have already been lost or transformed.
The orbital question is harder because two effects work in opposite directions. Tides raised on the expanded Sun remove orbital energy from Earth and pull it inward. At the same time, the Sun loses mass through stellar winds and eruptions; a lighter Sun exerts less gravity, allowing a surviving planet’s orbit to expand. The final result depends on which process dominates during each phase of the Sun’s evolution.
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How the Sun will evolve
NASA’s 2025 explanation places the Sun roughly halfway through a lifetime of about 10 billion years. It will not explode as a supernova. Instead, after exhausting hydrogen in its core, it will expand into a red giant, shed much of its outer material, and contract into a hot, faint white dwarf about the size of Earth.
| Stage | Approximate timing from now | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Present main-sequence Sun | Today; about halfway through a roughly 10-billion-year lifetime | Core hydrogen fusion keeps the Sun stable, while its gradual brightening slowly raises the energy received by Earth. |
| Red-giant branch | About 6 billion years | Core hydrogen is exhausted. The Sun’s outer layers expand enormously, and its mass begins to decline through powerful stellar winds. |
| Asymptotic-giant branch (AGB) | Later in the giant phase | Repeated shell-burning episodes and much stronger, poorly constrained mass loss reshape the Sun’s envelope and alter planetary orbits. |
| White dwarf | About 8 billion years | The remaining core contracts to roughly Earth’s size. It is extremely hot but faint because it no longer produces energy through normal core fusion. |
These are educational, approximate timescales rather than dates that can be placed on a precise calendar. The transition to a red giant is commonly described as roughly six billion years away, with the white-dwarf endpoint around eight billion years from now.
Why Earth becomes uninhabitable before the red giant arrives
The Sun’s luminosity increases during its main-sequence evolution. Long before its visible surface reaches Earth’s orbit, the additional energy will push Earth’s climate beyond the range that supports today’s oceans and biosphere. During the red-giant and AGB phases, the enlarged star exposes any nearby surviving planet to far more intense radiation and to the changing environment of the stellar envelope.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchNASA astronomer Dimitri Veras summarized the orbital uncertainty this way: “I am confident that the Sun will swallow Mercury and Venus, and not Mars. But the fate of the Earth — which resides in between — is less clear.” NASA also quotes Mandell: “We’ll all be long gone. Earth won’t be habitable, and the only chance for survival would be for an advanced civilization to migrate to a new planetary home.” Those statements refer to different questions: biological survival is effectively ruled out for Earth’s present surface, while the planet’s final orbit remains a calculation rather than an observation.
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The orbital tug-of-war: tides versus mass loss
How mass loss pushes an orbit outward
When the Sun loses mass slowly compared with a planet’s orbital period, the planet responds by moving to a wider orbit. NASA says the Sun will eventually shed about half of its mass and that surviving outer-planet orbits can settle at approximately twice their current distances. This is a broad evolutionary picture, not a promise that every planet will experience the same factor or that Earth will reach exactly 2 astronomical units.
Outward migration reduces the heating Earth receives, but it does not automatically preserve habitability. The orbit can expand only after the Sun has already become much brighter, and the planet may undergo severe atmospheric and oceanic changes before the mass loss is complete.
How tides and drag pull a planet inward
As the Sun’s envelope expands, Earth can raise tides on that envelope. Friction dissipates orbital energy and angular momentum, shrinking Earth’s orbit. If the planet enters the extended atmosphere, aerodynamic drag adds another inward force. Engulfment is therefore possible even while mass loss is trying to move the orbit outward.
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The critical issue is not simply how much mass the Sun loses. It is the timing and rate of that loss compared with the strength of tidal dissipation in the giant envelope. A rapidly declining solar mass can move Earth outward before tides become fatal; a slower decline or stronger tides can leave the planet inside the expanding envelope.
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What the 2008 model predicted
In a peer-reviewed 2008 calculation, K.-P. Schröder and Robert Connon Smith used a tested stellar-evolution code to follow the Sun and its planets. Their model estimated that the Sun would lose 0.332 solar masses on the red-giant branch, about 7.59 billion years from now. Mass loss expanded Earth’s orbit, but the calculation also included tidal interaction and drag.
The result was that Earth would not escape engulfment. In that model, a hypothetical planet would need to begin at about 1.15 astronomical units, rather than Earth’s present 1 AU orbit, to avoid being swallowed. This is a model outcome under the assumptions used at the time, not an observation of the Sun’s actual future and not a measurement that can settle the issue today.
What the 2026 study changes
Esseldeurs, Mathis and Decin revisited the problem in a 2026 Astronomy & Astrophysics study. Their main change was the treatment of tides: they used updated, ab initio prescriptions for tidal dissipation instead of relying solely on older formulations. They also tested a range of AGB mass-loss rates, the phase in which uncertainty is especially consequential.
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With the updated tidal model, their calculations allow Earth to survive both the red-giant branch and the AGB phase. When they use observed mass-loss rates from L2 Pup, a near-solar-mass evolved star, the model again produces survival through the AGB. L2 Pup serves as an observational proxy because its inferred initial mass is close to the Sun’s, giving the calculation a real evolved-star comparison rather than an entirely theoretical mass-loss history.
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The same study does not claim certainty. Older tidal prescriptions still lead to engulfment, and low AGB mass-loss rates also produce engulfment even with the newer treatment. The authors describe survival as likely when the L2 Pup observations are used, while emphasizing that the ultimate fate is not robustly determined because AGB mass-loss rates remain uncertain.
Mats Esseldeurs, one of the study’s authors, described the outcome as a “delicate balance between these two effects.” In practical terms, the result is a conditional update: improved physics and an observationally motivated mass-loss history shift the balance toward Earth surviving as a planet, but they do not turn a model-dependent forecast into a settled fact.
Could Earth orbit the white dwarf left by the Sun?
If Earth avoids engulfment, it would remain gravitationally bound to the Sun’s remnant unless later interactions removed it. The remnant would be a white dwarf: a compact, extremely hot but faint stellar core about the size of Earth. As the Sun loses mass, Earth’s orbit would expand relative to its present distance, although the exact final orbit depends on the detailed mass-loss and tidal history.
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An Earth orbiting the white dwarf would not be a habitable second Earth. The surface would already have experienced the Sun’s giant-phase radiation and envelope environment, and the white dwarf’s heat output would decline as it cools. The orbital-survival question is therefore about whether a planetary body remains, not whether present-day life can continue on its surface.
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The phrase “the Sun’s death” can also mislead. The Sun will not vanish suddenly; its evolution proceeds through giant phases, envelope loss and a long white-dwarf cooling period. The most dangerous interval for Earth is the transition through the swollen red-giant and AGB envelopes, when tides, drag and mass loss compete directly.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why scientists cannot give a definitive yes or no
No experiment can wait billions of years to observe the Sun-Earth outcome. Forecasts must combine stellar-evolution calculations, orbital dynamics and observations of other stars that are now passing through stages the Sun will eventually reach. Each ingredient carries uncertainty.
- AGB mass loss: The rate can vary substantially, and small differences in the late-stage history determine how quickly the Sun’s gravity weakens.
- Tidal dissipation: The efficiency with which a giant stellar envelope converts orbital energy into heat is difficult to calculate and depends on internal structure and convection.
- Timing: Tides and mass loss change as the Sun evolves, so an average value cannot capture the entire interaction.
- Proxy limitations: L2 Pup is useful because its inferred initial mass is near the Sun’s, but it is not the Sun. Its measured behavior constrains possibilities rather than revealing a guaranteed solar trajectory.
- Model dependence: The contrast between the 2008 and 2026 results shows that changing a physical prescription can change the predicted fate.
For that reason, the strongest defensible statement is probabilistic: current, proxy-calibrated modeling makes physical survival plausible and perhaps likely, while a low-mass-loss history or older tidal treatment still permits engulfment.
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| Model or assumption | Predicted outcome for Earth | What controls the result |
|---|---|---|
| Schröder and Smith (2008) | Engulfment; a starting orbit near 1.15 AU would be required for survival in their calculation. | Stellar evolution with tides and drag under the prescriptions available in 2008; 0.332 solar masses lost on the red-giant branch. |
| 2026 study, updated tidal prescription | Survival through the red-giant and AGB phases in the reported calculations. | Ab initio tidal dissipation treatment combined with tested AGB mass-loss rates. |
| 2026 study, low AGB mass-loss rates | Engulfment remains possible. | Insufficient outward orbital expansion before tides and drag become decisive. |
| 2026 study using L2 Pup observations | Earth likely survives as a physical planet. | Observed mass-loss rates from a near-solar-mass evolved-star proxy plus the updated tidal model. |
The table compares assumptions, not competing observations of Earth. There is only one future Sun-Earth system, and its late-stage parameters cannot currently be measured directly.
What this means for the practical answer
- Will Earth remain habitable until the Sun becomes a white dwarf? No. Surface habitability ends billions of years earlier as solar output rises and the giant phases expose Earth to extreme radiation.
- Will the Sun definitely swallow Earth? No. Older calculations said engulfment was likely, but updated 2026 modeling with L2 Pup-based mass loss finds likely physical survival.
- Could Earth survive outside the Sun’s photosphere? Yes, under the newer proxy-calibrated scenario. Survival is still conditional on uncertain AGB mass loss and tidal dissipation.
- Could a surviving Earth orbit the white dwarf? In principle, yes: if it is not engulfed or otherwise removed, it can remain bound while the Sun’s mass loss expands its orbit. That would be orbital survival, not preservation of a habitable world.
Bottom line from current stellar-evolution models
Earth’s living surface has no realistic path through the Sun’s future giant phases, so habitability is settled in the negative. The fate of the planet itself is not settled. The 2008 model predicted that tides and drag would overcome outward orbital expansion and engulf Earth. The 2026 study, using updated tidal physics and observed mass loss from L2 Pup, shifts the prediction toward Earth surviving the red-giant and AGB phases. Because the Sun’s AGB mass-loss rate is still uncertain, that survival result should be treated as the leading conditional scenario rather than a definitive forecast.
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